Rating: 
Summary: A Gold Mine
Review: A gold mine of information. But the reader must mine the gold.
The author is a Harvard graduate and a former admissions officer there. His writing and organization should have been better. Some of the sections are bloated and repetitious. He should have used more illustrations and less text. And his advocacy of racial ³diversity² was unnecessary and unpersuasive. His editor should have insisted that he condense the manuscript from 254 pages to 200 pages. Nevertheless, get out your shovels and start digging. Its worth the time and money.
Rating:
Summary: A Midwest Mother's View
Review: A really helpful book coming from a parent in the midwest that has not spent much time looking at many schools outside of Michigan and Illinois. The book gave me a better sense of how to look at my child's development from a wholistic perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: Sloppy writing...
Review: After reading the reviews already posted, I was thrilled to buy the book and dig in. Since I successfully braved Harvard's admissions process and I currently help high school students do the same, I was more than a bit curious about getting a peek behind the curtain. Well, call me a stickler, but I quickly and easily found many grammatical and logical errors that left me questioning much of what I read. I can excuse confusion of "affect" with "effect," but I have a problem with an ACT/SAT I conversion chart that confuses total scores with subscores: a 36 on the ACT equates to a 1600 on the SAT I and not an 800, as Hughes' chart indicates. And I'd expect a Harvard man to know that Duke, Northwestern and Rice are not Ivy League schools. Also, did anyone else notice that the praise on the back cover came from people I can only assume Hughes works or has worked directly with? Pemberton not only works at Monster with Hughes, they share Boston College ties. Drummond is a fellow admissions officer at Harvard. The last review was from a guidance counselor at a high school...What did the real critics think??My point is that I couldn't put full trust in what I read because of these kinds of flaws. I'm disappointed to hear that this is the leader of the pack for "how to" books on college admissions.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy writing...
Review: After reading the reviews already posted, I was thrilled to buy the book and dig in. Since I successfully braved Harvard's admissions process and I currently help high school students do the same, I was more than a bit curious about getting a peek behind the curtain. Well, call me a stickler, but I quickly and easily found many grammatical and logical errors that left me questioning much of what I read. I can excuse confusion of "affect" with "effect," but I have a problem with an ACT/SAT I conversion chart that confuses total scores with subscores: a 36 on the ACT equates to a 1600 on the SAT I and not an 800, as Hughes' chart indicates. And I'd expect a Harvard man to know that Duke, Northwestern and Rice are not Ivy League schools. Also, did anyone else notice that the praise on the back cover came from people I can only assume Hughes works or has worked directly with? Pemberton not only works at Monster with Hughes, they share Boston College ties. Drummond is a fellow admissions officer at Harvard. The last review was from a guidance counselor at a high school...What did the real critics think?? My point is that I couldn't put full trust in what I read because of these kinds of flaws. I'm disappointed to hear that this is the leader of the pack for "how to" books on college admissions.
Rating:
Summary: The Only Admissions Guide You'll Need
Review: As a private admissions consultant, I've bought and read MANY admission advice books over the years. "What It Really Takes to Get Into the Ivy League & Other Highly Selective Colleges" is my new all-round favorite! Mr. Hughes has distilled his years of Harvard admissions experience into an invaluable "how to" book. With statistics, facts, anecdotes and wisdom - he covers the range of issues that will face a student aspiring to a highly selective college. This highly readable, logically organized book gives college-bound teens and their parents the tools to guide their steps, make informed choices and optimize the likelihood of admission to the school of their choice. I particularly liked his:
analysis and advice of what is required to be a competitive Ivy League candidate
explanation of how applications are read and evaluated by Admissions
case studies, applying those principles to 5 recent Harvard graduates. You can't take the challenge out of applying to selective colleges - but Mr. Hughes takes the mystery out of it. I will be recommending "What It Really Takes to Get Into the Ivy League & Other Highly Selective Colleges" liberally to ALL my clients - not just the Ivy league bound.
Rating:
Summary: The Only Admissions Guide You'll Need
Review: As a private admissions consultant, I've bought and read MANY admission advice books over the years. "What It Really Takes to Get Into the Ivy League & Other Highly Selective Colleges" is my new all-round favorite! Mr. Hughes has distilled his years of Harvard admissions experience into an invaluable "how to" book. With statistics, facts, anecdotes and wisdom - he covers the range of issues that will face a student aspiring to a highly selective college. This highly readable, logically organized book gives college-bound teens and their parents the tools to guide their steps, make informed choices and optimize the likelihood of admission to the school of their choice. I particularly liked his:
analysis and advice of what is required to be a competitive Ivy League candidate
explanation of how applications are read and evaluated by Admissions
case studies, applying those principles to 5 recent Harvard graduates. You can't take the challenge out of applying to selective colleges - but Mr. Hughes takes the mystery out of it. I will be recommending "What It Really Takes to Get Into the Ivy League & Other Highly Selective Colleges" liberally to ALL my clients - not just the Ivy league bound.
Rating:
Summary: The Only Admissions Guide You'll Need
Review: Everyone has an opinion as to how best to prepare your children for school. Mr. Hughes has presented a very well written account of his experiences (all the more basis for a legitimate opinion), and uses them to set the stage for students and their parents. Having his experiences and advice packaged in this wonderful book is worth far more than I can imagine.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable perspective
Review: Everyone has an opinion as to how best to prepare your children for school. Mr. Hughes has presented a very well written account of his experiences (all the more basis for a legitimate opinion), and uses them to set the stage for students and their parents. Having his experiences and advice packaged in this wonderful book is worth far more than I can imagine.
Rating:
Summary: The secrets revealed...
Review: Everyone knows it takes more than a good "how-to" book to get into a great school, but the specifics often remain a mystery. "What It Really Takes..." goes a long way towards eliminating that mystery. My daughters' admissions process is still a few years away, but they will both be reading this one and hopefully taking this solid advice to heart.
Rating:
Summary: You Need to BUY This Book NOW if You Want to Get In!!!
Review: I just finished reading What It Really Takes..., and I found it incredibly enlightening and helpful. The college counseling in our area is not well informed in regards to the selective college admissions process, and this book does a great job of helping me think more about the things I should be doing to help provide my children with the support and resources that many parents in other parts of the country are able to provide.
I am glad that I found this book, and I will definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about selective college admissions.
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